Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Details: Forced perspective is a difficult thing to truly do right in LEGO. This photo is how it's done. There's just the one picture of this model, but it's so perfect that you don't really need a second photo (and there's likely an issue with the model not looking as good from other angles anyway). The idea behind the forced perspective technique is to mix scales in a way that makes some things look further away. In this case, we see a cockpit that is built at about half of actual size, with microscale planes and missiles in the distance that are about one hundredth of regular size. The mountains on the backing mosaic are at even smaller scale. Even though the different parts of this model are very close together, they look like they're fairly far apart. More importantly, this looks more realistic than most first-person plane-driving video games. The illusion of screens is created by using old dark grey inlays inside of frames built in the newer dark bluish grey color. Additional studs-not-on-top trickery with small lime plates creates the details on the screens. A similar technique is used for the mountains in the background - the snowy mountaintops are surprisingly complex, and the rows of peaks in the front are brought out by using an older shade of grey, and some brown in front of that. Even the dark green plates for foliage turns out to be spot-on. Most of the techniques have already been picked apart in notes on flickr, so if you're still curious, check out the link above (you can also "embiggen" further).

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